When the right solution comes along people are more open to change, regardless of how simple or involved that change is. Internet has been struggling with the password problem for a long time. There has been a push to get Stronger Authentication for online interactions for as long as I can remember, and yet most financial institutions do not offer Stronger Authentication options to their customers, let alone enforce it. And this is not due to the lack of available Strong Authentication options. Phone call / SMS based Authentication, Google Authenticator app, Microsoft Authenticator app are all excellent Strong Authentication solutions. But none of these gained any widespread traction.

Internet users were tired of Phishing and wanted more Security for their Online Accounts, but they were not willing to give up on their privacy. There was always a trade-off— if you want more security and anti-phishing controls, you had to give up on privacy. Then along came FIDO which addressed security and phishing problem while giving the users control of their privacy of their online interactions. Recently the FIDO U2F / UAF Open Standards for Strong Authentication seems to be quickly gaining grounds. To a certain extent this could be because FIDO is easier compared it to other Strong Authentication options. But mainly because not only FIDO addresses the Login Security aspect, but it also prevents Phishing while respecting User Privacy. User Privacy is baked into the protocol.

So on this First Tuesday of 2016 take action to preserve your online privacy and security and enable FIDO based Strong Authentication on Google, Github and Dropbox accounts.